


Steal Her Heart

by fanfic_nonnie



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Dancing, Developing Relationship, Drabble Series, F/M, Marriage, Royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 11:57:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18249365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanfic_nonnie/pseuds/fanfic_nonnie
Summary: He wondered how to steal her heart.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Melody_Jade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melody_Jade/gifts).



Gen was used to thinking in terms of _things_ he could steal, before his cousin rearranged his perspective and told him to steal her a peace. He'd stolen a queen, a wife, the most beautiful and terrifying bride that gave him nightmares and sat stiffly upright when she woke him from them.

There was no question in her face when he stared at her, sweat-ridden and heated, just what tormented him.

Her hand was on his wrist above the stump.

He pulled back abruptly, and she made no move to keep him close.

He wondered how to steal her heart.


	2. Chapter 2

Nobody who wasn't blinded by Gen's brilliant misdirections ever thought him less than ambitious, Irene considered, as she watched her strange, canny husband. He'd catch her looking and sometimes shoot her a small, sly look before doing or saying something outrageous.

It certainly wasn't endearing.

He'd stolen her entire kingdom—for her, from her—and refused to _be_ a king by her side. "I have no need of a court fool," she told him coldly.

"You're the queen," he said easily. "And they love you."

He was wrong. He was right.

"I'm the queen's Thief."

She'd wanted the Thief once.


	3. Chapter 3

Irene didn't remember the garden or dancing as a girl. She didn't remember freedom. She remembered the heavy expectations of those who would use her like a playing piece, the sharp taste of the advice Relius gave, the taste of poison on her lips.

She didn't remember anything that felt like the way her Thief looked at her, like she was the sun and he a planet spinning around her, the way his hand felt when it dropped warmly against her side with an ease that startled them both.

It tasted sharp. She had him, but not how she'd wanted.


	4. Chapter 4

He idly offered a dark red rose at breakfast. Irene had turned down previous gifts, jewelry of her most despised courtier. She imagined his nimble fingers where they didn't belong and declined to take the necklace. (She'd felt them at her own neck, tracing skin so lightly, it almost wasn't obvious he meant her to feel it.)

"I suppose it's from my gardens?" she asked, a hint of bite in her voice.

Eugenides only smiled. "I hardly have my own."

He hardly needed his own—of anything.

Irene reached but he was quicker, gently tucking it into her hair. "Beautiful."


	5. Chapter 5

She'd wanted a Thief once, when she fought fiercely for power and consolidated her rule. She knew the nature of the power one wielded with a Thief in her hands. She hadn't particularly wanted a King.

But she had one now, a man whose every action reflected on her, who drew the knowing, testing eyes of her court to swirl around his position of power and seek to find weaknesses in this new tower of her defenses.

Gen was her King now whether he wanted it or not, and she would not let her court treat him as her weakness.


	6. Chapter 6

He promised to steal her the power of the other nations, to steal a future that could survive the threat of the Medes, to break the House of Erondites. He quirked his mouth in that sly smile, and she wanted to tear his heart out, wanted to catch him to her and kiss him and bite the smugness from his face.

"You're loyal to Eddis," Attolia pointed out. He'd ever been loyal to his family.

"Yes," he said simply, then caught her fingers in his.

She caught her breath.

"This will secure their future as well."

Beneath her own power.


	7. Chapter 7

The first night, they did as they were supposed to. It wasn't a shining moment, and he'd deserved everything she threw at him before and after they fulfilled their duty.

Contrary to court rumor, she'd never had a lover and it was awkward and uncomfortable at best. Only Gen's embarrassed flush at the end struck an odd pleasure in her chest.

But not everything was duty. The way he looked when he woke, nightmares gleaming in his glazed eyes, his harsh swallow at the sight of her.

Her own face was wet as she soothed him against her former self.


	8. Chapter 8

Irene could dance in every practiced form appropriate to her upbringing and position, but it was different dancing with Gen. He reached for her with knowing hands and cunning smile, and it didn't matter that his were different steps than those she'd trained in.

She needed a strong King to quell her barons. He needed room to do his work and played the fool to get it. She'd grown to love him, and she terrified him though he loved her.

A dance with a thief on the parapets, the long fall beneath them as they balanced on a hairpin's edge.


	9. Chapter 9

Gen never came to her openly with confessions of love. They were offered in secret with as little choice left to her as possible, or later, when he clambered through her window as she stared in exasperation at his boyish grin.

"May I come in?" he asked with a flourish.

She allowed it. He grew awkward in a moment, flushed with his own victory but not asking outright for what he wanted.

She loosened her hair from its pins. He wrapped his fingers in its thickness, and her breath slowed as he drew her near.

He breathed her name, "Irene."


	10. Chapter 10

Piece by piece, bit by bit, they chipped away at the roles they played, the queen and her thief, the queen and her reluctant king, and displayed their hearts where they had hidden them.

She placed his hand on her thigh and raised her brow; she kissed his cheek and felt him tremble. Time brought familiarity to a different sort of dance, one where he sometimes cursed the difficulty of undressing her with one hand, then laughed.

Underneath the will of the gods and the ruthless maneuvers of consolidating their rule, there was Gen and Irene, the husband and wife.


End file.
